“Apple and Google [yesterday] made a repeat appearance in front of the US Senate, newly joined by Facebook, for a subcommittee on mobile privacy,” Electronista reports.
“The corporations largely stuck to earlier positions in defense of their actions,” Electronista reports. “‘Apple does not track users’ locations — Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so,’ said Apple’s VP of government affairs, Catherine Novelli.”
“‘I think anyone who uses a mobile device has an expectation of privacy, and sadly that expectation is not always being met,’ commented Sen. John Rockefeller IV [D – WV] at one point during the hearing,” Electronista reports. “Topics during the hearing included the concept of ‘do not track’ lists, and Sen. Mark Pryor [D – AR] asked whether or not geotracking can ever be ‘legitimate.’ Rockefeller later commented that apps are ‘totally unregulated,’ something he wants fixed.”
Read more in the full article here.
CNET’s Declan McCullagh reports, “Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said that ‘we need companies like Google and Apple and Facebook’ to join Microsoft, which has ‘already come down on the side of common sense’ in this area.”
“It wasn’t clear what Kerry meant,” McCullagh reports. “Microsoft also collects records of the physical locations of customers who use its mobile operating system, but the company did not testify at today’s hearing and has not responded to a list of questions about its data collection practices that CNET posed on April 25.”
McCullagh reports, “While the discussion was billed as being about mobile privacy, it soon veered in other directions, with senators waving around their iPhones and asking about ‘do not track’ lists and ads in e-mail, an apparent reference to e-mail spam. And Sen. Mark Pryor wondered whether it geotracking was ever ‘legitimate’ — even though without an app’s ability to transmit its location, location-based services wouldn’t function. Today’s situation is that ‘apps that are totally unregulated. and the question is what do we do about that,’ Rockefeller said. ‘They have to be regulated.'”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
U.S. Senate Democrat Leahy introduces electronic communications privacy bill – May 18, 2011
Apple, Google, and Facebook to face 2nd U.S. Senate hearing on May 19 – May 17, 2011
Apple open to lawsuit over location data collection – May 11, 2011
Apple, Google detail mobile privacy policies before US Senate subcommittee – May 10, 2011
Recap of Apple and Google’s testimony before Senator Al Franken’s mobile privacy hearing – May 10, 2011
Ignorant, meddlesome, incompetent, publicity-hungry legislators of all stripes should be voted out of office ASAP.
I agree with you. It’s sad that this bastages waist our money this way. They need a Pay Cut. They are obviously under educated for their pay grade. They need to get a CLUE! DOH!
Glad to see you didn’t waist your education.
…or waste it, either.
For once we agree. Are you as stunned as I?
HORRIFIED! ; )
As a member of the “Throw the Bums Out Party” (I always vote against the incumbent), I agree with you. Unfortunately, the replacements, of any stripe, are just as bad.
… what about those more vile among the Android apps that have been noted here. As it stands, Apple, itself, regulates the apps that appear in the App Store. To the consternation of many coders. And we, here, chuckle over the screwing waiting for Android users seeking apps.
That said … I agree with your sentiments. Do they apply, here?
Dumbshits will do as dumbshits often do. Ask stupid irrelevant questions for the sake of the TV cameras hoping to appeal to clueless PC mongering constituents.
The only apps that are ‘unregulated’ belong to Google’s Market Place. All apps in the iTunes App Store are vetted beforehand.
Stupid is as stupid does. They should be gunning for Google instead of wasting taxpayers’ money pursuing Apple on issues they have no understanding of.
The problem is, when they say “unregulated,” they mean “unregulated by the Government.” More government invasion of the private sector. That’s a scary thought.
What about the elephant in the room? How is it that MicroSoft is not required to testify? Something fishy here.
It is predominately Democrats who are spearheading this. I do not believe they are dumb, I think they are organized and with a purpose in mind. How many times have they shown their true intentions with the mention of “regulation?”
You know for the past 6 months or so, criticism of Apple has come from so many different sources. Look out Apple you have a huge bull’s eye on your back.
just what we need ignorant regulation and government control of business. yeah, cause they do so freakin well controling their own business (the debt crisis, political corruption, etc, etc) that they feel they are “experts” in controlling “unregulated” apps. what the hell?!?!? i swear to god politicians are nothing but a bunch of self absorbed, corrupt a$$holes.
And we all thank you for helping to vote them into office.
Lawmakers should be elected and paid to carefully pick those 10% of the laws which are not neccessary any longer instead of always adding more. We need less and better laws and not more laws and regulation!
Good old Jesse Ventura had that idea but better.
“Spend every 4th year removing obsolete laws.”
These guys are just upset about this issue because they probably all have mistresses and don’t want ANY evidence of their rendezvous with said mistress stored in their smartphone.
+1 LMAO 😉
Although we all know Strauss-Kahn is not American; I’d be willing to bet he has an IPhone perhaps two. Can you what his contacts list must comprise of???
I heard that he ‘bumped’ his iPhone with Arnie’s with the result that Arnie’s screwing the Guinean housekeeper & DSK is screwing Arnie’s former maid.
They do like a bit of domestic fun. Ooo la la! J’aime avoir des rapports sexuels avec des domestiques!
MASSIVE *DING* Factor.
And it makes no difference what’s their party affiliation. They’re secretly screwing over someone.
What needs regulating is career politicians living off the teat of the American taxpayer as they live the life of a “Dominique Strauss-Kahn”.
Get rid of all 2+ termers! Democrats and Republicans alike! They can’t use the “Experience Matters” argument as screwed up the country is economically, militarily, and foreign policy wise.
Also, government should be deprived of it’s ability to create a budget. They create all this BS and then tell us what we need to pay. I say we tell them as a payers, this is the “allowance” you are going to have for the year and now you determine how you will spend it! Imagine if the country says to government, you get 2 trillion in allowance instead of a budget close to 4 trillion AND there is no tolerance for spending beyond that!
Microsoft has a history of generosity toward politicians who are in a position to benefit the company (see favorable Justice Department ruling for MS after Geo W completely restaffed the place). I would be interested to see how generous they’ve been with Kerry.
Where was all this regulatory fervor when Enron, Keating, Ebbers, Madoff, et al were fleecing their victims while no-one was watching them? Why aren’t there congressional investigations over the daily manipulation of stock prices, especially AAPL?
Sen. Kerry is apparently clueless and in the hands of Microsoft. MS did not appear at the hearings. But Kerry said MS had “common sense”. Absurd!! Let’s see, we want to take away regulation of nursing homes, which have a sordid track record of sleaze, but “it’s time to regulate apps.” The lunatics have taken over the asylum. Sad to see Kerry cruising down the slippery slope.
I think by common sense he means, nobody gives a crap about Microsoft anymore.
Kerry? I thought he was in Pokeestahn telling them how it was going to be.
Where does he find the time to spread so much goodness (and ketchup) around the planet…?
And BTW, if their had been as much regulation in the past as a certain Senator always wants, Rockefeller wouldn’t be a “Rockefeller”, if you know what I mean
Rockefeller – the irony is thick with that one.
Kerry clueless? Naive? or paid to say that.
Maybe the wife or another rich female. He likes to “play” in France. Been doing it for years. He’s too clueless to deal with anyone from MS, etc.
Rockefeller with his inheritance is now an upstanding Marxist who wants to tell all businesses what to do as he is smarter than the average bear.
Preventing fraud is one thing that is already covered and could come under existing laws.
I am automatically programmed to nix any unneeded laws.
We have too many.
politicians are the most clueless people on the planet
they spend all their time and energy ‘getting elected’ and spend no time getting ‘educated’.
Unfortunately they have so much power they Apple can’t stand up and humiliate them like “senator do you have any clue whatsoever about what we are discussing? Do you know the difference between say GPS and WiFi?”
THANK GOD Steve Jobs wasn’t there:
1) he would have been totally exasperated and insult them OR
2) he would get a heart attack
remember Jobs got into serious trouble some years back by daring to suggest schools should fire incompetent teachers as our children we too precious. He was asked to apologize and recant….
if politicians actually ran anything we would be ‘computing’ with our fingers (counting them) instead of using iPads.
The most important political office is that of private citizen.
I think there needs to be a Congressional Inquiry into Congress.
Instead of being realistic and chastising the correct side of the equation, we get this typical knee-jerk reaction from John Rockefeller IV:
‘I think anyone who uses a mobile device has an expectation of privacy, and sadly that expectation is not always being met.”
Dear John: The correct response should be directed to anyone using a telephone of any kind, anywhere, that if you use it, someone, somewhere can identify your location. And if you use a smartphone and enjoy knowing at the touch of button where the closest Starbucks is, then don’t be so naive to not know your location must be pinpointed to provide this little miracle. Yes, John, let’s rush out to create a new victim class.
Obviously Apple would be a better company if its business, including AppStore, were regulated by the government, for the good of the people. We all accept that the pharmaceutical companies, and oil companies and banks and aerospace companies should have major decisions made by government bureaucrats, because they focus on the common good, right? So Apple, which subscribes to the idea that pro-active government is good should also benefit from strong government regulation. In fact, the NLRB should disallow Apple from operating a big data center in North Carolina, a right to work state that does not favor union jobs. Apple already avoids union labor by placing manufacturing in third party companies who use cheap, non-union Chinese labor. Apple needs to be brought the benefits of government oversight, to correct the self-serving capitalistic approaches that currently drive its business model.
Has it not occurred to those brilliant government asshats that if you don’t want anyone to know where you are, you don’t tell anyone? Everybody is suddenly going ballistic over privacy, including Facebook junkies who sign their lives away for the privilege of exchanging inanities with their Facebook friends. But no one wants to give up their location-based apps. Duuuhhh???
DEFINITELY APPS MUST BE REGULATED. I think app should be required to have Blue backgrounds when Democrats are in control and Red Backgrounds when the Republicans are in control. This way we know they are doing something.
At little regulation never hurt. Besides it guarantees that all App will have a common color theme! — I’m all for it!
You see… If you’re able to regulate something then you’re able to tax it.
This is just how Democrats think. It’s a reflex action.
And just wait until these aholes in Congress realize there’s no taxes being collected on apps. Watch out…
Headline!:
“Apple and Google are tracking your location with their smartphone.”
John Q. Citizen:
“WHAT! That’s outrageous and unacceptable! I demand my privacy!! Someone needs to do something about this so that these companies can’t do this sort of thing! We want our privacy!!!”
(2 weeks later) Headline!:
“U.S. Senate Democrat Rockefeller: Totally unregulated apps have to be regulated”
John Q. Citizen:
“WHAT! That’s outrageous and unacceptable!!! The government needs to stay out of our lives and out of corporations business practices. Corporations should be allowed to do whatever they want without government interference!!!”
You conservatives are funny, you’re like your own little political cartoon. heh-heh.
I only wish the cartoon were little. The “Right-wing social engineering” in the US House proceeds rampant.
All this from the same career politicians who brought us the USA un-Patriot Act.
The problem with politicians? They truly believe they are better than us. That the government is a separate class of citizen; the ruling class if you will. They believe american taxpayers are there to serve them, and that all the governments powers are there to serve them personally, with complete disregard for the American people.
When the American people come to their senses and realize these tyrants in Congress have first names and there is nothing special about the title Congressman, Congresswoman, or Senator, that will be a start.
What the American people really need to do is put an end to career politicians. Holding office was never meant to be a career. They were elected to be citizen legislators who served the public for a short time, then went back to being a normal citizen after a term or two. Instead, they begin to believe they are different; that they’re special. If there is one thing for certain, it is that they believe the rules don’t apply to them.
Until we “Throw the Bums Out” as qka said above, don’t expect things to get better in this country. It will only be more of the same with a different piece of legislation attached to it.
“Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said that ‘we need companies like Google and Apple and Facebook’ to join Microsoft, which has ‘already come down on the side of common sense’ in this area.” . . “It wasn’t clear what Kerry meant,”
Of course not.
What’s that brown stuff on your lips brown Mr. Kerry?
every wish you could edit posts here?
“senators waving around their iPhones and asking about ‘do not track’ lists and ads in e-mail, an apparent reference to e-mail spam”
Like the tech-ignorant little children they are, having a TaNTruM, unwilling to do their homework in order to understand what they’re talking about. Hopeless PoliTechTards. (0_o)
YEAH! Those unregulated fart apps need to be regulated.